


i touch the fire and it freezes me

by sunsetseas77



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Identity Reveal, Kara’s feelings for Lena are not purely platonic, POV Kara Danvers, elevator scene flashback
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 02:51:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17215610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetseas77/pseuds/sunsetseas77
Summary: After warmth has made its way in, it’s much colder than before if it leaves. Angst in an identity reveal – Lena figures it out.“The slowness of the approach is a warning, but there’s nothing to stop, not anymore. Kara knows where this is going, the fall pattern of pieces predictable, like dominoes, from the moment the first toppled.”





	i touch the fire and it freezes me

**Author's Note:**

> My second ‘I wasn’t planning on writing this scenario’ but the first part of the elevator scene in S3 and a manip where Lena (instead of Cat) questions Kara’s identity were circulating at the same time a month or so ago. That put this into my head with the S3 scene as flashback.

_The quick click of heels echoes on linoleum and a hurried voice calls out a request. Kara’s arm darts forward. The door slides back and the recognition that follows causes a distinctive type of happiness to blaze through her, one that has been absent and has left her yearning for it. She greets Lena with an unencumbered smile and a flush on her face, authentic expressions possible here after tumultuous weeks of high-stakes mysteries and stress that have demanded almost constant reticence and tactical truth-telling from her._

Bare feet sink into the plush rug, moving step by purposeful step to her. The slowness of the approach is a warning, but there’s nothing to stop, not anymore. Kara knows where this is going, the fall pattern of pieces predictable, like dominoes, from the moment the first toppled. No, from before that, from when she erected them one-by-one with words and actions borne out of a life built from loss and otherness.

She’s anticipated this confrontation since Alex’s call asking if she had insight on cryptic words that had been uttered after a casual conversation at the DEO. Alex expressed confusion, but Kara’s mis-step, which destabilized that first piece, was immediately apparent to Kara. If Lena’s mind had snapped around the information made available to her, it would tip completely.

Kara didn’t tell Alex about her realization of the high probability of Lena’s epiphany, instead politely demurring on her ability to explain and disconnecting from the conversation with her sister. She needed time to think if this reckoning was coming at her because any opportunities to circumvent it were now lost. To what, she couldn’t entirely say, but she knew the justifications that permeated her past choices. Many of those decisions she wouldn’t change.

Opening her door after a single knock that she’d expected for over an hour, sixty plus minutes of musings that had provided her no new insights, Kara attempted to cover in case, somehow, her prediction was wrong. She played the role to stave off suspicion and awkwardness hoping that she’d be helped by the relaxed evening look, fluffy socks, blue leggings, and a loose ivory sweatshirt topped by a messy bun under soft lighting, and friendly banter so far from what her visitor was looking for evidence of. She’d even brewed a pot of tea that emitted the pleasant scent of cinnamon and cloves.

Kara’s words and forced cheer were met with silence from the dim hallway, a nod of greeting all that was extended as Lena entered her apartment. Unsparing eyes drilled into Kara as Lena stopped just inside, watching Kara close the door and step back while Lena set down her laptop bag and slipped off the heels that paired with her business suit, a habit formed from numerous visits.

“Alex called you.” The voice was flat.

Kara nodded once, dropped her head, and gave space to Lena, stopping and taking a deep breath when she reached the couch. She turned to face Lena, her hands quiet at her sides. She hoped she was conveying acceptance of any move her currently motionless visitor chose to make.

_The first touch of a forearm crossing her shoulder trips nerves that fire through her, the relief of contact facilitating the release of tension throughout her body. Kara almost drops her tote to the floor of the elevator so she can encircle Lena with both arms. Lena and Supergirl have been at odds, and Kara has weathered it with a hope that the bond between Lena and Kara could make it right. This is what she has faith in, the support and love they extend to each other filling the space between them, bringing with it the potential to knit together even unrecognized rifts. She can struggle at times with the personas demanded of her and what they dictate about her interactions with others, but a relationship with Lena has been important across all of them._

_She won’t admit how she also craves this; she doesn’t allow herself to think about what has been nurtured inside her by what Lena offers her. Lena is her friend; Lena needs her friendship. And that is what she will give her. Kara’s only slipped twice and acknowledged a reality that deviates from her commitment to this internal narrative. The first time she found herself sat up in bed in the deep hours of the morning, certain she should be disturbed yet more intrigued by the images of Lena that had just journeyed through her unconscious. The second occurred when she couldn’t explain in any other way the look her sister gave her after she recounted to Alex with what she realized in retrospect was complete infatuation the evening Lena had treated her to, including dining at a superb restaurant and attending the opening of an art exhibit Kara had been dying to see. As Lena steps closer into her in the elevator, capable of making Kara’s breath stutter even while bathed in unflattering, fluorescent light, Kara welcomes the pleasant pulses of warmth that now follows the pathways of released tension even as she pushes down what it could mean._

As Lena draws near, Kara raises her eyes as potent forces of guilt and regret try to sweep them down and away. She will not let herself duck away from this moment that she helped guide the two of them to. Yes, others contributed, but it’s hers to own. She knows that acting from that acknowledgement is the only way that this bond with Lena that she cherishes, and that she understands at a deep level is not just a friendship, at least not to her, might be salvageable. The chances of recovering it today are zero by her calculations, but maybe someday they can mend this, and that conceivable future stiffens her resolve. 

There’s familiarity in the situation and foreignness in the reaction she finds before her. After all, she’s been here, across from a recipient of her superhero identity, but past looks had included curiosity and wonder mixed in with surprise. Lena’s expression is stoic with the barest hint of disappointment apparent around the eyes if one knows what to look for.

Lena blinks slowly, examining, her eyes carefully scanning Kara’s face. She finally seems to come to a decision and raises her arms. Kara keeps her chin up.

Hands that tremble through the effort to steady them land on Kara’s glasses and linger briefly. Kara closes her eyes at the touch and the accompanying surge of fear for what is about to happen. Even feeling this dread, Kara has no plans to move or speak. She knows those hands won’t be deterred without her direct interference – the earned reputation of the woman in front of her for completing what she sets her mind to guarantees that – and she isn’t going to intervene.

Kara feels the glasses lifted off and hears them set on the coffee table. She pulls the hair band out herself to let waves fall around her shoulders. Hiding’s ended.

She forces her eyes open and looks on a face that now only displays curiosity, as if Lena has changed tacks and decided to engage with this as a puzzle rather than what she could validly judge is a damning deception.

Lena’s mask may be succeeding, but her words carry the hurt that she’s trying not to show.

“Do you realize how you twisted this? How you twisted us?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you still did it.”

Kara winces but the discomfort is of her own making. She shoves it aside to give Lena the truth, “I did.” 

Lena’s expression doesn’t falter. Kara allows her gaze to drop, seeking a small reprieve from a lack of reaction that communicates volumes. 

She hears a sigh hiss out, followed by a soft yet unyielding voice that thunders both Lena’s disdain for Kara and her self-recrimination, “God, you were important to me.”

Kara breathes out, “Lena,” but she can feel Lena’s presence already withdrawing, and Kara stops. She closes her eyes to keep sudden tears from falling and listens to feet return with pace to the door. A short pause occurs as belongings are gathered, and then Lena is gone from the apartment.

Kara opens her eyes, saltwater on her lashes, and slides down the front of the couch arm to land on the floor. Her head falls into her hands. She’s floated in darkness and flown unprotected in the freezing vastness of space. She’s known emptiness and cold, but they’ve never settled around her heart in the way they do now as the chill flows in, pulled by a vacuum left when warmth and connection fled with Lena. 

Her body manifests the shift, unexpected freeze breath released with a deep, shuddering exhale hitting the coffee table. The glass top shatters, scattering shards all around her. Sobs spill out.

_Kara pulls Lena’s radiance tightly to her. A ping sounds as the door begins to close and Kara lets herself, just for these few seconds, melt into a singular voice low in her ear that hums, “I’ve been missing you for weeks.”_


End file.
